Collab.home | The Uber of Real Estate Asset Management

Project Introduction

Collab.home is a fully democratized digital platform for real estate management and investment in the United States, founded by Wang Qian, the former founder of NOVA Shengxu Real Estate. NOVA achieved asset acquisitions and management totaling $3.1 billion within four years, with investors including Warburg Pincus, GIC, KTCU, and Inferred NanFeng. Recently, with the assistance of Beta and partners from JoinBrix, Collab.home has successfully built its product team, facilitating the implementation and user experience of its products.

Since the housing reform in China in 1998, the Chinese real estate industry has entered a phase of rapid development. From 2000 to 2020, China’s housing market value increased from 23 trillion yuan to 418 trillion yuan, growing by 18.2 times with a CAGR of 15.6%. After more than two decades of development, China’s real estate industry is approaching the end of its extensive development cycle and is transitioning into the “stock era.”

According to The Business, the global real estate leasing market grew from $2.16429 trillion in 2021 to $2.37201 trillion in 2022, with a CAGR of 9.6%. It is expected to reach $3.13052 trillion by 2026, with a CAGR of 7.2%.

How Technology Empowers Existing Real Estate

Many real estate developers are actively exploring existing real estate. The sector of existing real estate is emerging, and the industry is facing numerous pain points: the complex process of bulk transactions and acquisitions, lack of transparency in property information; asset liquidity lacking capital support; traditional commerce failing to keep up with the times; and the disconnect between front-end data collection and actual application, which cannot meet the diverse operational requirements. For ordinary investors, investing in commercial real estate often involves high investment thresholds and difficulty in assessing project value.

The pandemic has accelerated the explosion of new demands and the emergence of new scenarios, driving the real estate industry’s new service models to shift from offline to online, promoting the digital development of work scenarios.

About Collab

To address these issues, Collab established the YuFeng Asset Management Platform in Shanghai in 2019 and founded Collab.Home in the United States in May 2020. It became the industry’s first Web3 community-based platform focused on student apartment investment and operation management. Collab.home is a fully democratized digital platform for real estate management and investment in the United States. The “Collab” community pioneered the student apartment industry platform, with community-based and autonomous management as its biggest features—no property managers, no third-party leasing companies, but tenant self-management, forming a closed-loop of interests.

In Collab’s real estate investment platform, tenants living in apartments can also become employees and investors. For example, tenants can earn rewards by showing potential users properties. By allowing role transitions, it saves everyone’s time and money, fostering a collaborative and mutually beneficial community to achieve a win-win situation. Collab sets new standards for scalability, profitability, and inclusivity in the industry. Over the past two years, it has achieved the following milestones:

• Owns and manages multiple properties, including in Berkeley, California; Boston; and New Brunswick, with approximately 200 tenants.
• All properties, including leasing, maintenance, and additional tenant requests, are managed by Collab’s tenants.
• Developed the Collab Asset Management System v1.0, which integrates investment management, leasing management, and operational management (“Task Center”).
• Submitted Reg A+ crowdfunding products to the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission).
• Since May 2022, the crowdfunding investment platform has accumulated over 10,000 member registrations.
• Established a digital marketing platform for Collab members’ asset management to expand and strengthen the investor community.
• Increased NOI profit margins by 5% through a community-oriented management system.
• Does not hire local leasing agents or external property managers; the operational system and tenant property managers are the core pillars of Collab.
• Identified optimal investment locations for student housing, near universities with high enrollment rates and in diversified real estate portfolios in high-entry markets.
• Operating in three markets and currently acquiring 10 properties in New Haven.
• After completing the Yale asset transaction, continues to actively build transaction channels, managing an investment portfolio totaling approximately $45 million.

About Collab’s Founder, Wang Qian

When talking about Collab, it’s essential to introduce its founder, Wang Qian. An alumnus of Tsinghua University with a bachelor’s degree in architecture in the 1980s, Wang further pursued dual master’s degrees in architecture and real estate at MIT. His strong professional background enabled him to collaborate with top private equity firms like Warburg Pincus and GIC to invest in commercial real estate projects in the most bustling areas of Shanghai and Beijing, China. In 2015, he co-founded NOVA Shengxu Real Estate with Warburg Pincus, where as a co-founder and chairman, he achieved asset acquisitions and management totaling $3.1 billion within four years, with investors including Warburg Pincus, GIC, KTCU, and Inferred NanFeng.

During the pandemic in 2020, Wang returned to Harvard University in the United States for further studies and simultaneously founded the technology company Collab.Home, a fully democratized digital platform for real estate management and investment in the U.S. The “Collab” community pioneered the student apartment industry platform, with community-based and autonomous management as its primary feature—no property managers, no third-party leasing companies, but tenant self-management, forming a closed-loop of interests.

How Collab Operates

Collab operates on its proprietary platform, iREAM, the world’s first digital asset management platform for operational properties. iREAM integrates digital technologies like blockchain and AI into all aspects of real estate investment, renovation, leasing, and operations. Key features include:

• On-Chain Transactions and Real Estate Data: Ensures the authenticity of real estate information.
• Smart Contracts: Facilitates peer-to-peer services and transactions with decentralized communication.
• Asset Tokenization and Equity Splitting: Allows small-scale investments in commercial real estate.
• AI Empowerment: Provides intelligent property recommendations and automated services.
• VR Remote Property Experiences: Enhances information flow, capital chains, business flows, and decentralized management in real estate, transforming traditional asset management models.

Since April 2020, the iREAM asset management platform has been managing nine real estate projects in Shanghai and the San Francisco Bay Area, covering all asset management aspects including investment, renovation, leasing, and operations. In 2021, the team plans to leverage cutting-edge technologies such as blockchain, NFTs, and AI to achieve functionalities like single-asset digital transactions, digital original certificates, dynamic pricing, and smart contracts.

More About Collab.home

• Website: https://collabhome.io/
• Xiaohongshu: @collab.home